


Aftermath

by SunlightOnTheWater



Series: Pathways [13]
Category: Riddick (2013), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, POV Boss Johns, POV Vaako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlightOnTheWater/pseuds/SunlightOnTheWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the incident everyone has things to process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boss Johns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited On 10/14/2014

_His crew had been from varied backgrounds, different walks of life, and their experiences had allowed him to adapt to hundreds of different situations. Now only Dahl was left, but maybe she was exactly the person he needed to help him understand this._

* * *

They'd been lucky. Johns was reasonable enough to accept that as fact after they escaped that planet, Riddick long gone. He'd lost two good men to that planet and if Riddick hadn't helped how he had, they would have all died there. It would have become their graveyard. Instead he'd escaped with Dahl and two new crew members, both of which who were at least teachable, if not competent in their own ways. None of them were really any worse for wear and once they'd stopped trying to kill him, the con had stopped trying to knock them off. The boy had been a different story. The boy had been petrified. It bothered Johns more than he would have liked to admit.

"You're brooding again." Dahl's voice was amused and a little curious. She settled down in the chair across from him, managing to lounge despite that fact that it was bolted securely to the floor of the ship and she couldn't tip it like she preferred to. Vargas was giving Luna a crash course on how the power nodes in the ship worked so the two of them could speak without worry of being overheard. "What about?"

Johns considered how to answer for a moment before meeting her cool eyes. Dahl's eyes were the secret to telling how she was truly feeling about anything. She could keep a lid on her emotions, keep them mostly hidden, but if you knew where to look her eyes gave them away. "The boy," he said at last, voice heavy.

"What about him?" Dahl pressed.

"You saw how he behaved around us, correct?" he questioned. Dahl nodded, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table. When he didn't say anymore she studied him, tilting her head slightly.

"You want to understand why he reacted the way he did to certain things, don't you?" she asked and he nodded.

"I do."

Dahl considered him for a moment and then asked, "Where do you want to start?"

"At the beginning."

"I wasn't with you when you found him. That was Moss and Lockspur," she reminded him. Johns bowed his head at the mention of the men he had lost to the monsters of that planet and Dahl reached across the table to lay her hand over his. "There was nothing you could do to prevent their deaths. You know this. Besides, they wouldn't want you to take responsibility for their choices like they were immature children incapable of making their own decisions."

"I want you to start with your first impression of him," Johns said, changing the subject. Dahl's lips turned to a disapproving frown but she didn't protest, instead considering what he asked of her..

"Okay," she said at last. "Too skinny, definite past and maybe current eating issues, and very jumpy. Also he didn't want anyone near him which could signal possible past physical abuse. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a history of psychological manipulation either. "

"And later?"

"When Diaz went after him?" Dahl asked, eyes sharpening, and Johns nodded. There were two things that were bothering him. One was the kid's reaction to Johns himself after Diaz had gone after him and the second was the kid's reaction to Riddick. After doing all that research, Johns had known Riddick only as a bloodthirsty killer. That a boy as skittish as this one had been would trust Riddick with his safety was nothing short of stunning. Dahl looked down at the table, tapping her fingers in a way that told Johns she was contemplating her unpleasant past.

Victoria Dahl, who had never gone by her first name even when Johns had first met her and loathed it almost more than the murderers they brought in, had grown up in an overcrowded orphanage. She had been old enough to never be wanted enough but young enough that she had been sent to several foster homes before she ran away at the age of fifteen. By then she had been abused so badly that she had been naturally distrustful of adults and older children. By the time Johns had met her for the first time she had learned to hide most of it away and by this point she had moved forward from it, though it lurked in the back of her mind still and probably always would. He had not meant for her to look back at those memories. 

He watched the pain cross her eyes and flinched almost imperceptibly. "My apologies," he told her, standing. "I did not mean to make you think back on unpleasant things." Then he moved to check their location and the next navigation, leaving Dahl to brood on her past and shove it away in a box in peace.

* * *

_Dahl had looked haunted the first time he had met her. She had been wary of the other men on his crew. Lockspur, who had been with him at the time, and a man called Saben who had died four months after Dahl's employment, had been smacked more than once when they startled her. Johns himself had deflected several blows. It had been his first sign that things with Dahl were not what they had initially seemed._

* * *

He got an answer, unexpectedly, almost twenty-four hours later. "The way he reacted when Diaz first moved at him," Dahl said from her position by his left shoulder as if by some strange kind of magic. "Shows a pattern of abuse brought down on him from those stronger than himself. The way that he pressed back at the wall means he felt trapped by the coming threat and the way his eyelids were fluttering said that he was either trying to hold in a flinch and instinctive movement to shield himself for a blow or he was trying not to close his eyes so he could possibly dodge."

She took a deep breath then and Johns waited patiently for her to continue. He knew that Dahl was drawing these conclusions from both her own experiences and the experiences of the other foster children and orphans she had known during her childhood. "Before that point you had been broadcasting, by accident I'm sure, that you weren't a threat to him."

"What do you mean?" Johns asked, turning his chair to face her. He knew his confusion was written obviously across his face but he trusted Dahl enough, after all their years working together, to reveal to her how he was truly feeling.

"First off, you made sure not to crowd him," she informed him. "You herded him a little but you didn't reach out to touch him at any time or get into his personal space. For a person accustomed to physical violence against them, like I suspect he is, either one would have made him panic. Then, once he was settled in the base, you proceeded to ignore him. For any abused child, being the center of attention never signals that anything good is coming. The fact that you ignored him, and that, for the most part, everyone else followed suit allowed him to relax some. That leads me to Diaz." Dahl paused then and Johns recognized the look on her face as the one she often wore when organizing her thoughts. "Diaz backed him into a corner, trapped him really, and that was enough to start up the fight or flight reaction except in him, the only reaction was flight. Barring that, it could have led to a panic attack. You reaction to that was to snap at Diaz to back off and didn't got after him when Diaz did. That's where things get interesting, really."

"What do you mean?"

"Your reaction to Diaz actually revealed a number of things. The first of which, obviously enough, is that you were in a position of power but when you didn't go after him you showed that, at least in public, you weren't going to abuse it. You also let him know that, despite the fact that you'd been ignoring him, you knew where he was the entire time. That it was a conscious choice not to acknowledge him, possibly an attempt to make him more comfortable. It was probably the first time he began to think that maybe you weren't going to hurt him." Dahl grinned suddenly at him. "I have to admit that his calm reaction to your threat surprised me but then I thought of a couple things. First of all, you never actually threatened him any harm. You promised that you would track him down but there was no mention of retribution. Then there is the likelihood that Riddick planned the entire thing from the start and the boy knew eventually that the con would come get him."

"So Diaz was right, in a way," Johns mused, unsure what to think about the rest of what he'd been told. "The boy was a plant but not as a spy for Riddick. More of a distraction."

"Yes," Dahl said. "And a very brave one at that. For someone like that to trust his welfare to mercs who could have killed him or handed him right back to his past abusers with only the promise of someone else that they wouldn't be harmed is incredible." She left Johns to contemplate what she'd just told him, knowing him well enough to realize that he'd be puzzling over the information for a while. She was calling for Luna as she went, probably to impart some kind of knowledge she felt the young man needed to know. He had adapted well to the change in crews and took to their instruction like a duck to water. Sometimes it fascinated Johns how well the kid had worked out.

Vargas was busy tinkering with something to do with the power nodes again. The man was a technological genius who had fallen on hard times and had ended up in debt to Santana. Slowly he had found himself working willingly for the merc, becoming what he had once vowed he would never be. The man was an invaluable asset to his team. He had melded easily with Dahl and Johns and, furthermore, he was an excellent role model and already a friend to Luna. Maybe it wasn't his old crew, with Moss and Lockspur to back him up, but Johns had a feeling that the two dead men would have approved of the newcomers.

* * *

_Eventually, by the time Moss joined the team, Dahl had settled in. She no longer attacked them on the off chance that they snuck up on them, though she continued to lock her door at night and set the program for cyrosleep so she was the first one awoken. She still had not shared anything of her past._

* * *

They did not speak of the incident again, though it was always being turned about in the back of Johns' mind, until they made port at a fairly common backwater planet. Vargas and Luna had left to ensure they would get their supplies and the shipments Johns had been promised almost a year before when they'd last made port on the planet. That left himself and Dahl to clean and air out their ship. "So why did the boy trust Riddick?" he asked her as they dumped trash and dust off the ship. Mud had been collected on the ship from their last eventful landing and Johns was eager to have it out.

"I'm not sure," Dahl replied, sending another brush full of dust off the edge of the ship's landing ramp. "Somehow the convict earned his trust at some point, did something that allowed the boy to let down his guard. I can't say what kind of thing that would be, especially for a child who has been exposed to the pattern of abuse that boy probably has, but from there it would be possible to build up trust. It wouldn't be easy but if someone were persistent they could manage it."

They worked in silence for a few minutes, preparing the ship for the long travel ahead of them. They picked up another possible bounty a few hundred light years away. It looked to be simple, which Johns needed after the whole disaster with Riddick. It would build up confidence among the team along with giving him a good idea of whether or not Luna and Vargas were going to work out. "Do you think we'll ever see them again?" Dahl asked as the other two crew members returned, burdened with supplies.

"With any luck," Johns told her. "We won't." Dahl considered that and then nodded in agreement, moving to help the boys unload the supplies. Meanwhile Johns tilted his head back to study the sky and sent up a prayer to whoever was listening that he'd never end up running into the convict again.

* * *

_When Dahl had shared her past, slowly and sometimes under the influence of drugs, it had been a horror show. Time had dulled the horror of knowing what Dahl had gone through in the past but even now Johns would hesitate to force her to travel through those memories. Still she was the strongest woman he'd ever met._


	2. Vaako

_If he'd been really eager to lay blame he'd hand it over to Lavinia. She'd forced his hand, blackmail and lies her bargaining chips, but he was the one who'd trusted Krone. He'd been such a fool and now others were paying for his mistakes._

* * *

Vaako had been locked away the instant Krone had returned without the Lord Marshall and the boy. Despite what Lavinia had thought, that the Necromongers as an entire entity loathed Riddick, the Lord Marshall had gained many supports if by no other virtue than by his ruthlessness when someone attempted to threaten him. Vaako had allowed Commander Toal to lock him away without protest, knowing there was no possibility of anyone considering him innocent. It was he who had tried to kill the previous Lord Marshall and it was he who had put Krone in charge of an expedition that was supposed to have gone to Furya. Instead the ships logs reported that Krone had not taken Riddick and Sam to Furya. Instead he'd taken them to an abandoned planet known for killing off anyone that lingered too long. Now he was forced to sit in a cell and pray for the Lord Marshall's return before he was ended.

They'd sent a search party to the planet but once it had reached there it had found nothing but the wreck of a merc station. There had been a signal a month or so before that claimed Riddick, and Riddick alone, had been on the planet. No one was left, just dead bodies of a few monstrous creatures no one could identify. Most the Necromongers believed that their Lord Marshall had died on that planet. Vaako wasn't so sure. He'd done some digging on Riddick and found more the one instance of the Furyan being left for dead only to show up angry. If Vaako died upon Riddick's return he could die at least knowing the man he had sworn to serve was alive. At least he'd know that his failure wasn't completely catastrophic.

Toal came rushing into his cell partway through the night. The other commander was as close a friend as Vaako had ever had and had promised to keep him updated. "Riddick has returned," the man said.

"And the boy?" Vaako asked. It had taken time but he'd gradually managed to gain some of Sam's trust. If the boy had died because of his foolishness he would never forgive himself.

"The boy is with him," Toal replied. Vaako breathed out a sigh of relief, slumping against the wall as Toal turned to the door. "I'll return when I can with news." The solid door to his cell slid shut but Vaako's eyes were already closed. The boy was safe. He could rest easy with the knowledge that both victims of his idiocy had returned safely.

* * *

_He hadn't at first realized what he had done. Krone had long served him and Lavinia had always behaved as if she hated the Necromonger for his loyalty. That was why he had sent the man and a couple other Necros to guide the Lord Marshall to his homeland. He'd discovered the truth far too late to do anything about it._

* * *

It was not Commander Toal who visited him agonizing hours later. Instead it was Kyra, her hair a wild brown cloud around her face. Her dark grey nightgown swept across the floor and her feet were bare. She had flung the door open so hard it hit the back wall with a bang. "Did you do it intentionally?" she demanded of him. She looked as if a wrong answer could be deadly.

"No," he told her without hesitation, knowing exactly what she was talking about. Her whole posture wilted some then and he got a glimpse of who was standing behind her.

Sam looked to be coping remarkably well despite the fact that he'd been dumped on a hostile desert planet. His eyes were clear of terror and face clearing of suspicion. "I wondered," he mumbled when he realized Vaako was looking at him.

"He kept saying that it seemed to be a sudden change," Kyra spoke up with a shrug. "Also, he doesn't exactly trust your wife. He says she reminds him of a demon he knew a while ago." Vaako nodded in acknowledgement, unsure why he was suddenly being told all this information. Riddick's little family wasn't exactly open about their pasts or emotions. Kyra was, by far, the easiest to approach and talk to and Sam the most difficult. The boy would shy away from any attempt to speak about his past or his nightmares. As if suddenly realizing she was being far more open than perhaps she should, Kyra's mouth snapped shut and she smiled slightly and nudged Sam out of the room, leaving him alone once more.

Toal returned some time after that, expression grim. "You will be brought to trial under the charge of treason," he informed Vaako. "If proven guilty, I fear the sentence will be nothing short of terrible." It was what he had expected upon hearing about Riddick's return. The convict would have been furious over what was would be perceived as a cowardly assassination attempt and his punishment, if Lavinia managed to make him appear guilty, would be severe. Toal left with the warning that the trail would be soon and Vaako settled in to wait and plan his defense.

* * *

_In the moments following his discovery of Krone's behavior, Lavinia had tried to use blackmail and persuasion to keep him silent. "No one need be told about this incident," she had purred as she circled him. He stood before the ship Krone had just exited, pale faced and furious by what had happened, by his own naive stupidity. "An accident can be arranged for Krone and the ship and no one would be the wiser. Then you, dearest husband, could be Lord Marshall and lead our people to the Underverse."_

_"You would have me betray the man I swore an oath to serve?" he had demanded, his voice ice._

_"For the good of the people," Lavinia had insisted, her smile false and sweet as honey. "You know, dear husband, just as well as I that the Furyan is not fit to serve as our leader."_

_"You persuaded me once but never again," he had snarled at her. "I will not betray my oath."_

* * *

The trail was long and agonizing. Riddick's expression throughout the entire period was unreadable. The Lord Marshall had abandoned the Necromonger armor he had worn in public since he had been declared Lord Marshall, instead choosing simple clothing that seemed more typical of a man on the run. Kyra, at his right, was dressed in a long black gown, a dove grey cloak fastened with rubies at her throat. It gave her the illusion of having her throat cut. Standing behind her left shoulder, eyes distant, was the boy. He was dressed in all black, hands clenching convulsively into fists from time to time in black leather gloves. His presence in the great hall was unexpected. Sam rarely left the safety and familiarity of his own room and rarely ventured into rooms filled with this many people. Still he stood there, silently, as Vaako was questioned and his statements ridiculed.

At time's, Vaako's eyes were drawn to those of his traitorous wife. Lavinia watched the proceedings with a smirk on her face. Krone, by some mysterious means, had vanished from his own cell just hours previously and was not available for questioning. Vaako could only hope that the Necromonger warrior had proved just as mouthy as he had always been and had spilled something that might leave the Lord Marshall a little open minded. The trail dragged on, many Necromongers with whom Vaako had rarely spoken to or associated with being called forth by the prosecution to testify against him. With each word spoken, Vaako felt his chances of survival slowly slip away.

At last the prosecution closed their case and all eyes turned to him to provide his own defense. He stood slowly, knowing that with Krone's escaped and Lavinia's skill in lying that he would never be able to dig himself out of this trap, and measured his words before he spoke. "What can a man say against such accusations that will not be seen as a lie? How can I protest my innocence, insist that it is the truth, when all others conspire against me? I cannot stand against these." He sat slowly, gasps echoing around the room before quickly being stifled. Toal's expression was stone but Vaako knew that the other commander realized the death sentence had already been signed and sealed. There was nothing more that he could do.

"I believe we are not quite finished." Sam swept down the stairs as if he had been born to do so, the black cloak Kyra had undoubtedly chosen rippling behind him like an eerie shadow. His eyes were no longer vacant, but instead filled with a deadly light. The prosecutor's eyes narrowed and his lips pulled back from his teeth in an animalistic snarl.

"You would challenge the truth from the lips of near a hundred?" he demanded. The boy met his eyes steadily.

"I would."

The prosecutor, a Purifier Lavinia was particularly close to, turned then to Riddick. "You would allow a child to step into the affairs of men like this?" he demanded and Riddick's lips curled in a silent laugh.

"I already have," the Lord Marshall said, his voice rumbling through the room like the coming of an army. The prosecutor quailed and silenced, stepped back at the boy's cool stare in the moments that followed Riddick's pronouncement. The convict nodded at Sam and the boy turned then to address the room at large.

"You've all heard the question of this man's character, addressed thousands of times his attempted betrayal to the last Lord Marshall, and doubtless plenty of you believed them," he said, voice echoing through the room and bouncing off vaulted black ceilings. "But there is one key person none of us have heard from. One who mysteriously escaped from his cell just an hour before this trial began; Krone." The room filled with whispers as two young Necromonger Lieutenants, men Vaako had trained and trusted, dragged in a battered looking Krone. "Fortunately for us," Sam said with a smile that was positively wicked. "He has been retrieved."

The boy easily turned Krone on his head, tricking the warrior into telling the truth when he should have been lying. Lavinia's smirk became set and Vaako realized why Krone had been freed by her people; the warrior was a terrible liar. Krone delighted in bragging about what he had done and Sam seemed to know exactly had to flatter and threaten him into spilling everything he knew. In just twenty minutes, Krone gave away who had given him orders and Sam moved on to Lavinia.

Vaako's wife was furious, snarling at every accusation. Sam didn't bother to charm or threaten her. Instead he let her fling her vitriol at him for a while, expression unworried. At last, when she had exhausted herself, he spoke. "Your loyalties, Dame Vaako, had been brought into question," he said calmly, his voice loud in the absence of Lavinia's snarling. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Do not question my loyalties you squalling child," she snarled at him. "I am truly loyal to the faith and all those too weak to truly follow, to take their place in this world, will be eliminated. You and your family are not fit to reach the edge of the Underverse or see what lies beyond this filthy universe."

"I believe," Riddick said, his voice cutting off anything more that Lavinia might say. "That I've heard enough. Nikolaus Vaako is cleared of all charges and what would have been his punishment will be handed to Dame Vaako and Krone. Case closed."

For a moment Vaako was swamped with pure relief. He would not die today and there was something immensely satisfying about the look of complete disbelief on Lavinia's face at Riddick's pronouncement. Then he collected himself and moved to thank the boy for his assistance, only to see Kyra leading him out of the room. He was leaning heavily upon her, as if whatever feat he had just preformed had drained him dry of all will. Riddick himself was sweeping down the steps to approach him, expression cool and measuring. "He trusts you," the convict said as soon as he was close enough for the commander to hear. "Don't fuck it up." The implied threat had Vaako nodded quickly and then the convict was gone, weaving through the crowd in the direction his adopted family had gone.

* * *

_"You'll regret this," Lavinia had hissed as Vaako had left her behind to report what had happened. "I'll ensure that you never see daylight again." Although her words had set fear in his heart he had gone anyway, knowing that he could not bear to betray his oath again._


End file.
